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Isn't it time for him to go home yet? It is good, in theory, that the new President of the United States is taking so much time to tour Europe. He arrived in London last Tuesday, has been to Strasbourg, Prague yesterday and now he's off to Turkey. It shows, I suppose, that he cares about the outside world and that is 'A Good Thing'. But his long stay means that we are hearing rather a lot from him, way too much in fact. His speeches have long under-delivered, usually leaving a faintly empty sensation in this listener even though...

Welcome to “The Levin Lounge”… Step in and have a FRink.Will we hear… Taking the country by storm, one radio station at a time – and kicking the BUTTS of the competition! Welcome all, to the most FUN LIVE THREAD on FreeRepublic! Call the show: 1-877-381-3811

BAGHDAD, Iraq - With his powerful anti-American movement losing its footing amid U.S.-led round-ups and military operations, the Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is trying to recast himself in his one-time image as a national resistance figure for all Iraqis - Shiite and Sunni alike. In central Baghdad, a large billboard featuring al-Sadr's defiant visage proclaims: "I'm not Shiite/I'm not Sunni/But I am Iraqi." On Monday, the fourth anniversary of the U.S. conquest of Baghdad, al-Sadr ordered his followers to unite in the holy city of Najaf in a "mammoth demonstration" against the U.S. military presence and to "raise the...

Call it "A Nightmare on Bulwer Road." A British man, Jason Moore, could spend the rest of his life in the clink for attacking his friend John-Paul Skamarski with a knife-equipped glove -- much like the one Freddy Krueger used to snag his prey in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" horror flicks.

The national commander of the American Legion never served in Vietnam although he describes himself as a "Vietnam veteran," a newspaper reported Sunday. Paul A. Morin, who was elected Aug. 31 to a one-year term as commander of the nation's largest veterans organization, spent his time in the Army from 1972 to 1974 at Fort Dix, N.J., The Boston Sunday Globe reported. Neither the federal government nor the 2.7 million-member American Legion makes a formal distinction between veterans who served in Vietnam and those known as "Vietnam-era" veterans. "I am a Vietnam veteran," Morin, of Chicopee in western Massachusetts, told...

Venezuela oil pimp can have UN May your prayers be answered, Señor Chavez. May the United Nations leave New York for residence in Venezuela, so very far from the diplos' lush and cushy berth on the East Side. The sorry organization isn't worth the gridlock. You're more than welcome, please, to take the atrophied, self-abasing remains of a global ideal 2,100 miles to Caracas, where you can play the messianic oil baron game to your heart's content with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, fresh in from Tehran, perhaps with a dirty bomb in his suitcase. You can take the UN, and you can...

the Israel-Lebanon conflict never would've happened. Check out this article: http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060723/UPDATE/607230360

PARIS (AFP) - Venus Express, the European Space Agency's first mission to explore Earth's closest neighbour, will be launched next Wednesday from the Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. The ESA gave the prospective launch time as 0443 GMT. The 1.27-tonne unmanned spacecraft, which will be taken aloft by a Russian-made Soyuz-Fregat rocket, is expected to arrive at Venus on April 6. Venus Express, equipped with seven instruments, is intended to map the Venusian surface and weather system, looking at temperature variation, cloud formations, wind speeds and gas composition. Its main goal is to help understand why Venus fell prey to runaway...

A conservative uproar erupted over President George Bush's recent appointee to the Supreme Court. Bush nominated Harriet Miers to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But several key Republican senators say she not the best candidate. MSNBC-TV's Tucker Carlson talks to former judge and Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork about the Harriet Miers' nomination. He says it's, "a disaster on every level" because she has "no experience with constitutional law whatever". The nomination is a "slap in the face" to conservatives. TUCKER CARLSON, MSNBC HOST: Are you impressed by the president’s choice of Harriet Miers?

Prepare to intercept! John Edwards, the junk-science millionaire and ex-senator from NC, is making the Grande Tour of various union strongholds promoting a minimum wage increase. He will be proudly proclaiming his newest junk-statistics "36 million Americans are impoverished today - that's 13 million more than there were thirty years ago - and many are hard working men and women who simply cannot work their way out of poverty," unless someone challenges his nonsense! Please note that he is specifically targeting the "swing states" from the last election cycle. [It's over, John; You lost!] Next Week: Tues., June 28 12:00...

As has been discussed on Free Republic earlier, Downing Street Memo Originals Destroyed -UGH!, British "reporter" Michael Smith has told Asociated Press that he copied the original on plain paper and then destroyed the originals. But click here and you see a Reuters Wire Photo Showing a "Seal" on the "copy" offered to the press. The caption reads, "A copy of the so-called 'Downing Street Memo', produced in July 2002 for Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair on the legality of the invasion of Iraq. Photo by Stephen Hird/Reuters". Did he really destroy them, type them on plain paper? Don't look...

When backing tracks are the norm in genres ranging from pop to hip-hop, why hate Ashlee Simpson? IF SHE HASN'T done so already, Britney Spears might want to consider sending Ashlee Simpson a sympathy card. In October, just as the public was taking its hatred of Mrs. Federline to a new extreme – for committing the cardinal sins of, uh, "marrying down" and eating Cheetos – Simpson appeared on Saturday Night Live and, one backing-track mishap and impromptu jig later, gave Spears an indefinite hiatus from her reigning status as music's most reviled star. By the time Jessica's little sis...

Ashlee Simpson should just shut ... her ... mouth. Simpson, the little sister - image-wise, the evil princess - of Jessica Simpson, the good fairy, has found herself bobbing in boiling water for months. Some of her woes are warranted. Most are starting to take on a gladiatorial feel. Victim, meet lion. Lion, gnaw at will. First came Ashlee Simpson's appearance on a venerable Saturday Night Live episode. A miscued guide-vocal track - something used often and by far more respected singers than Simpson - created a debacle every bit the equal of Janet Jackson's infamous "wardrobe malfunction" at last...

I signed up for John Kerry's email list to see what kind of hate the dems are spewing and here it is; Dear Supporter, This is personal. As I traveled across the country last year, I learned a lot about the dreams, hopes, fears and frustrations of the American people. Nothing touched me more than the parents I met who feared that illness would strike a child who is uninsured. A sick child is always a worry. A sick child that you can't get help for is a parent's worst nightmare. Helping the 11 million children who have no health...

No Name Calling Week?     1/12/2005By Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D.Yes, name-calling is wrong. But this event’s sponsors reveal the agenda behind banning it. “There is a special place in hell for people like you!” These words were directed at me by a teacher during this past summer’s National Education Association (NEA) convention in Washington, D.C. This delegate to the NEA convention made his prediction in response to my presence at the NEA’s Ex-Gay Educators’ Caucus booth in the convention exhibit hall. His cheery salutation caught me off-guard given the message of tolerance and acceptance I had been hearing around the exhibit hall....

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said Sunday that when the full Senate debates the nomination of Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be Secretary of State on Tuesday, she intends to repeat charges that Rice deliberately misled the nation about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. "I will lay out again on the Senate floor [why] I do not believe [she] has been candid with the American people," Sen. Boxer told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer." "[She's] gone on shows like yours and made statements that I don't think were true, or they were half-true, didn't tell the whole story, didn't level...

US Democratic Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who had hoped to replace George W. Bush as president yesterday, instead sat in the cold and clapped as the Republican began a second four-year term. Iowa Democratic Senator Tom Harkin patted Senator Kerry on the back shortly before the inauguration Senator Kerry had hoped would be his. As Mr Bush delivered his inaugural address, Senator Kerry, about 10m away on the steps of the US Capitol, joined other lawmakers and the crowd in repeated applause. Senator Kerry looked relaxed, at times wistful. He frequently smiled, able to hide any disappointment over what...

Hugo Chávez receiving a Human Rights prize? or Muammar Gaddafi awarding it? or Daniel Ortega witnessing it?

ON top of everything else, Sen. John F. Kerry is an out doorsman, although he wouldn't be so politically incorrect as to refer to himself in anything other than gender-neutral terms. So he's an "outdoorsperson." At least, that's what he told Diane Sawyer on ABC a couple of weeks ago. ~snip~ In the current issue of Field & Stream, the outdoorsperson was asked about the biggest deer he'd ever killed — er, harvested. "Probably an 8-pointer," Kerry replied, "something like that. Nothing terribly big." Actually, an 8-pointer would be a rather large kill to most hunters — the kill of...

Those guys were real deal American warriors and this arrogant blowhard says this: CMD SGT MAJ ERIC HANEY: "There is a tremendous number of wantabes." O'REILLY (Cuts in): "Look at the guys who got strung up in Falluja. Ya know? I mean, right, I mean, you get these guys, and then they think that they're macho men, and all of a sudden they're hanging from a bridge." http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_vets_040204,00.html "Two Army veterans and a former Navy SEAL were among four American contractors killed in Iraq, their bodies mutilated and dragged through the streets...Jerko 'Jerry' Zovko, 32, Michael Teague, 38, and Scott...